A chronological study of the Bible

Read:

Genesis 1-4

Next week:

Genesis 5-11

Our reading this week begins with the statement that Noah was a

righteous man, the only blameless man living on earth! One of the first things that strikes me about this is how difficult it would be to

be surrounded by those who were evil all the time. Whenever Noah

had to deal with others in his town, it sounds quite likely that he

would be sinned against. He would be cheated and maligned. His

children would be treated cruelly, his wife would be harmed. But

rather use their poor behavior to excuse his own sin, Noah chose to

respond to the sin around him by walking with God.

Sometimes we too find ourselves in a world of wrong. A friend

betrays us, a spouse has an affair, our children fall into a rebellious

lifestyle, or a coworker falsely accuses us. God will not judge you

and me by the weakness and failings of others, but by our own re-

sponse to them. There is no wrong done by another that can justify

a wrong done by me, or as my mother used to say, “two wrongs don’t

make a right”. The only way to be righteous when we have been

landed in a world of wrong is to keep walking closely with our Lord.

That worked for Noah, and it will work for us!

What does it mean to “walk” with the Lord? ___________________

______________________________________________________

When do you find it most difficult to avoid falling into the evil

around you? ____________________________________________

What do we learn about Noah from these references to him?

Ezekiel 14:12-20 ________________________________________

Heb. 11:7 _____________________________________________

2 Peter 2:5 _____________________________________________

Inside this issue:

Inside Story 2

Inside Story 2

Inside Story 2

Inside Story 3

Inside Story 4

Inside Story 5

Inside Story 6

WEEK 3

Inside this issue:

Spotting Christ 2

Grieving the Lost 2

Tales of a Flood 3

Flood Facts 3

Nations after the

Flood

4

Tower of Babel 5

Worth Writing

Home About

5

Puzzle Clues 6

Puzzle Page 7

Answers and

Sources

8

Matters of Menu 4

Read:

Genesis 6:9-11:26

2

TGW WEEK 3

SPOTTING CHRIST

Noah seemed to have a lot of conversations with the Lord. The same Lord that would one day come instead of a great flood to redeem man from evil, much as Noah was sealed into the ark. Why do you think the time was not yet right for Christ to come instead of the flood?

___________________________________________________________________________

When God sent a wind to dry the floodwaters, the Hebrew word for wind is ruah, as when the

ruah (Spirit) of God hovered over the waters in Gen. 1:2. What are some of the other ways that

the new beginning described in 8:1—9:3 parallels the beginning described in Genesis 1?

___________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

What comparison does 1 Peter 3:18-22 make? _____________________

_________________________________________________________

What does the resurrected Christ say about the writings of Moses in Luke 24:25-27? ___________________________________________

Grieving the Lost Noah and his family must have suffered a tremendous amount of persecution

and ridicule all of those years while the ark was being built. When the flood finally came,

were Noah and his family all smiles as the storybook version illustrates? Were there some

hours or days of gloating before the horror of the situation hit home? How did these few

chosen ones feel about those who perished? Did they plead with God in their behalf, or

smugly mutter “I told them they would come to some bad end!”

During World War II, my father served in the Coast Guard. On

one rescue mission in the North Atlantic, they were only able to save

part of the men from the freezing water before the rest perished.

The faces of those that they hadn’t been able to save haunted him

the rest of his life.

Is that the kind of grief that Noah had for those who did not

listen to the warnings that he had preached for so long? The

scene must have been horrific. Is that the kind of grief that we

feel over those who have refused Jesus?

When Jesus referred to the flood in Matt. 24:36-42, did he focus

on those in the ark, or those who perished? _______________

_________________________________________________

3

Tales of a Flood Something as large scale as the flood that is talked

about in Gen. 6-9 is not going to go unnoticed or

unmentioned whether you are interested in God’s

role in it or not. The ancient Near East has many

myths of the great flood, all variations on the same

event. The earliest known writings are around

5,000 years old. One of the best known of the

many flood stories other than the Bible, is the Gil-

gamesh Epic, written on six inch clay tablets

found in Nineveh in the 1800s. It is written in an ancient

language called Akkadian and features Utnapishtim as a Noah figure that is

warned by one of the gods of a flood which he and his wife escape by tearing down their

house and building an ark, taking along specimens of every living thing. The ark was 175 feet

square and caulked with bitumen and asphalt, and was completed in only seven days. Once the

ark had run aground on Mt. Nisir, a dove, then a swallow, were released only to return when they

found nowhere to rest. Finally a raven was released and did not return. (Matthews and Benjamin 21-

29) The key differences between the various flood stories and the account in the Bible center

around the number and nature of the gods involved. While the Biblical account describes the

righteous actions of the one Creator God, the other stories involve multiple gods who behave in

very humanlike and rather fallible ways, even disagreeing with each other about the course of ac-

tion.

What does the existence of these parallel stories mean to you? ___________________________

Flood Facts A football field without the end zones is 300 feet. How long was the ark? ________________________ Here’s a hint: The Hebrew cubit was 17.5 inches, but it is thought likely that Moses would have recorded the Egyptian measure of a cubit which is 20.6 inches. (Hodge) What was the total of days that Noah and his family spent in the ark considering that they entered on the 17th day of the 2nd month of Noah’s 600th year (7:11) and left the ark on the 27th day of the 2nd month

of Noah’s 601st year (8:13,14)? ____________________

To get an idea of the size of Noah’s ark go to:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YapDn8cxEb0&NR=1 Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izg6JlKO-yE&feature=related Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOrQQWpLS6I&feature=related Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIyDWzc5I4M&feature=related To learn about the possible discovery of the remains of Noah’s ark go to: Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y5ORpMTebI Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE7nN80dIw8&feature=related http://www.satimagingcorp.com/gallery/quicktime-mt-ararat-low.html

TGW WEEK 3

In Islam’s Koran, Noah is referred to as Nuh. He makes up one of the five prophets of Islam alongside Adam, Moses, Abraham and Jesus.

4

TGW WEEK 3

Matters of Menu

What change of menu did God make after the flood? ______________________

Why was there a distinction between clean and unclean animals before the flood? __________________________________ How many clean animals did Noah take with him? _________________________ What is God’s stand on blood in these verses? ______________________ Genesis 9:4 Leviticus 17:14

Acts. 15:29

The Nations after the Flood

The sons of Noah scattered and multi-plied, fathering a diversity of nations. On each of the red place names on the map be-low, write a H for Ham, J for Japheth, or S for Shem. Use the genealogy in chapter10 to help you.

From which of Noah’s sons did the Israelites

descend? ______________________________

_____________________________________

Do you think there were other peoples who

may have worshipped God? _______________

_____________________________________

Which of these places do you expect to become

enemies of the Israelites? _________________

_____________________________________

The Post Flood World

5

Curses on Canaan—Whatever it was that really happened between the drunken Noah

and his son Ham, we do know that it resulted in Noah cursing his grandson, Ham’s son, Ca-naan. What names of Israel’s enemies do you recognize among Canaan’s descendants in 10:15-19? _________________________________________________________________________

TGW

Tower of Babel

The Sumerians (Mesopotamia) not

only created the world’s first writing

system, but are also credited with the

invention of the wheel, a numbering

system based on 60, and 100 foot tall

ziggurats, the remains of which still

stand today. These multistoried , pyra-

mid shaped structures seem likely to

be connected to the Tower of Babel of

Genesis 11. What do you think was distinctive about that particular tower that caught God’s disfa-

vor? _________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

How did God disrupt their plans? __________________________________________________

In light of this, what is significant about the work of God’s Spirit in Acts 2:5-12?

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

What are some ways that we try to build our own significance today? ________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

Worth writing home about..

What is the most valuable understanding that you gain from this week’s passage of Scripture? ______________________

_____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

6

TGW WEEK 3

Across

1 Terah's son 11:26 (5)

3 number of pairs of clean animals on the ark 7:2 (5)

5 what Noah was told to make 6:14 (3)

8 the animals would do this to Noah and his sons 9:2 (4)

9 sign of the covenant between God and all liv-ing creatures 9:16 (7)

10 Noah's burnt offerings made a pleasing one 8:21 (5)

15 a mighty warrior descended from Ham 10:6-8 (6)

16 son of Shem and father of Uz 10:22-23 (4)

17 days of rain 7:4 (5)

18 returned with an olive leaf 8:11 (4)

19 Canaan would be one to Shem and Japheth 9:26.27 (5)

23 coated the ark 6:14 (5)

25 son of Ham and father of Nimrod 10:6-8 (4)

26 Terah's father 11:24 (5)

30 earth destroyed by this 6:17 (10)

31 God confused this and scattered the people 11:9 (8)

32 one of the first centers of Nimrod's kingdom 10:9-10 (7)

33 Abram descended from this son of Noah 11:10-26 (4)

34 what happened to everything not on the ark 7:21 (8)

Down

1 mountains that the ark rested on 8:4 (6)

2 what Noah was 6:9 (9)

4 Noah planted one 9:20 (8)

6 Noah's joined him in the ark 7:1 (6)

7 condition of the earth in God's sight 6:11 (7)

8 everything that lives and moves would be this 9:3 (4)

11 God made one with Noah 6:18 (8)

12 maritime people descended from him 10:2-5 (7)

13 Nimrod built this city in Assyria 10:11 (7)

14 number of pairs of unclean animals on the ark 7:2 (3)

20 God sent one to recede the flood 8:1 (4)

21 added to the rain to make the flood 7:11 (7)

22 men settled in this plain and built the tower of Babel here 11:2-4 (6)

24 cursed by Noah 9:25 (6)

25 kind of wood the ark was made of 6:14 (7)

27 Noah built one to offer sacrifices to the Lord 8:20 (5)

28 meat with this in it must not be eaten 9:4 (9)

29 bird that Noah sent out first 8:7 (5)

Puzzle Clues

7

TGW

1

2 3 4

5

6 7 8 9

10 11

12 13

14 15 16

17 18

19

20 21

22 23 24 25

26 27 28

29

30

31

32 33

34

8

ANSWERS AND SOURCES

What are some of the na-tions whose begin-nings we see in

Gen. 10?

TGW WEEK 3

A B R A MR B S E V E NA R K L IR F C F E A R R A I N B O WA R O M A O O M C ET M R O E O J Y N

T N I M R O D L V A R A M IW L U E E P R N

F O R T Y P S N H D O V ET S L A V E V

W S N T EI S P P I T C H C U S HN A H O R A L A YD I I L I N P R

N N T F L O O D W A T E R AL A N G U A G E A E V

R S R B A B Y L O N S H E ML S NOO

P E R I S H E D

Sources

Tales of a Flood p.3

Matthews, Victor H., and Don C. Benjamin. Old Testament Parallels. 3rd ed. New York: Paulist Press, 2006.

"AncientFlood Narratives."Archaeological Study Bible. 2005.

Flood Facts p.3

Hodge,Bodie. How Long was the Original Cubit? Answers Building a Biblical Worldview. March 19, 2007. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/original-cubit

Islam’s Nuh p.3

http://english.bayynat.org.lb/messengers/PNoah.htm

The Post Flood World p. 4 "The Nations of Genesis 10."Chronological Study Bible. 2008.

Tower of Babel p. 5

Walton, John H. Bulletin for Biblical Research 5 [1995]: 155-75. You can find a reprint of this article at: http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a021.html

For comments or questions, contact me at

victoryrd@hotmail.com or for more studies visit www.downvictoryrd.com